Run
by Solia
Summary: An alternative take on chapter 22 of Break Me Every Time, in which the Miami Metro Homicide team does not believe Dexter's denial of Elway's photography and Dexter's natural instinct to run becomes hard to ignore. Read the original fic for context. Rated M for coarse language typical of the show. Written for adriangodzilla.


Title: For adriangodzilla

Fandom: Dexter

Rating: M for explicit language typical of the show

Disclaimer: I do not own _Dexter_ or any of its characters. I have no rights to Tumblr but I like writing the word, which is why it found its way into both this fic and _Break Me_. Likewise I don't have any rights to the six o'clock news of any television network, and 'six o'clock news' is actually a distinctly less fun term to write than 'Tumblr', with keys irritatingly all over the keyboard.

Author's Notes: This requested fic is written in thanks for **adriangodzilla** , who generously wrote a fantastic review for my original novel and asked for a _Break Me_ AU story in which Dexter's co-workers see Elway's photograph of Dex and Deb together but DON'T believe Dexter when he denies its validity. What if Elway had accidentally CC'ed others into his email to Clayton and how would it have affected the path of the Morgans? Read _Break Me Every Time_ up to at least chapter 22 before embarking on this piece if you want context. To clarify, this is an AU of an AU fic. An alternative take on chapter 22 of _Break Me Every Tim_ e. Thankyou very much for your written endorsement, **adriangodzilla**. I am so grateful for your support, encouragement and generosity. I hope you enjoy this!

Next on my list is a request from **writingisfunlol**.

/

/

We're running very late, driving to work, and as usual I'm passively arguing with Debra, because that's how we interact.

"Whatever, asshole. You know I'm fucking right. Anyway," she redirects firmly, "Elway." She raps her nails on the envelope Hannah found in Deb's doorway this morning. The envelope containing a very sensitive and compromising photograph of Deb and I making out on her couch last night. Which is not something we regularly do – since she's, you know, my adoptive sister – but this was a special occasion, you could say. "Twenty-four hours and he's going to share this. And you know he's got a fuckload more than just this one. Who knows how long he was standing out there? _Attention: D Morgan. Give me Hannah McKay within twenty-four hours or this goes public_. Cockface. What do you think he means, public? Tumblr? Six o'clock news? Like the world fucking cares?"

"Some people might recognise you from T.V. but they won't know me and it's not going to interest the general public even if they do. Public must mean people we know. Work," I confirm, and she screws up her nose.

"No offence, but I really don't want anyone there to know I kissed you."

"Likewise."

"But Elway's going to spam the shit out of their inboxes tomorrow morning if we don't hand over Hannah."

"Apparently." If I don't get to him first.

"And that's not an option either, because if we do we're admitting to having harboured her in the first place," Deb ponders with a sigh. "Jacob Elway gloating and wealthy and you and I imprisoned right next to Hannah fucking McKay – not an ending I'm cool with. Fix it," she demands moodily, tossing the envelope onto the dashboard, "and if you're not creative enough to think of a way to do that without killing him, just pretend otherwise and lie to me. If you kill him, I don't want to fucking know about it."

Needless to say, she's pretty damn angry with Jacob Elway. Typically my sister is the moral North Star of my existence – a cop, clean as they come, and _good_ , the way someone either _is_ or _isn't_ , regardless of their job or station in life. She _is_. She's the best person I know. But I'm the one to blame for the stains on her soul. The darkness in me has spread to her. She saw what I really am, and, inadvisably, didn't run away.

My sister is not a runner. I think, if I had walked in on Deb doing something I found morally incomprehensible, as she did me, I would probably have turned and walked out. But she stayed. She saw me put a blade through a bound man's chest and she _came closer_.

While I considered wildly what the fuck I would do and willed every atom in my body not to flee the scene.

I am the runner. We share sharp and insightful instincts, my sister and I, but where those take us are opposite extremes. Mine say run. Hers say stand and fight. Inconveniently, we can't leave each other, which puts us at constant odds as our heads and hearts rip us in different directions.

"I'll try my best," I assure her, an idea already taking shape. Like all other aspects of life, Deb wants to deal with Elway head-on. I've dragged her through enough lately, so I'll find a way to handle this situation without her involvement. We change topics for the remainder of the drive and discuss our concerns about Vogel and where she might have gone.

At work we ride the elevator up together like we would any other morning. The fact that we had a world-meltingly horrific day yesterday is lost on the other people in the lift. No one looking at us can tell what we went through in the past twenty-four hours: that we were shot at, that we both sustained injuries, that we watched someone die, that we had to lie about our involvement, that Deb almost lost her mind, that she asked me to kill her, that we kissed on her sofa and couldn't stop, that we realised we'd been photographed, that we chased the mystery midnight photographer across the beach but couldn't catch up… that I had a panic attack… that I realised I'm in love with Debra and probably have been always… That we woke this morning to what should have been a perfect day, except we woke up late, sore and tired from our misadventures the day before and with a big yellow envelope slid under the door to be found by my jealous and paranoid serial killer fugitive girlfriend Hannah to stumble across.

Nope. No one can tell. It's a secret, all of it, our secret, just between us.

The elevator doors open and we step out onto Homicide's floor. We've missed the morning briefing but Deb's already spoken to Angel to expect us late. She blamed me. What's new? We cross the office together and it's nothing new – everyone knows we're siblings, Harry Morgan's kids, and that we've lived together on and off in the years since starting work here, that we sometimes carpool – but today I get this _off_ feeling as we pass our workmates. I feel like their gazes flick away from us much more quickly than usual. Quicker than 'Oh, it's you'. Quick like 'Oh, it's _you_ '.

From the way Deb's pace slows I gather she's noticed the same thing. She's got my sharp instincts, but she's got none of my tact. Which is saying something, given that I am a socially inept serial murderer.

"The fuck's your problem?" Deb demands of a homicide officer sitting at his desk when he looks up at her and hurriedly away again. His cheeks flush with colour when she stops to wait out his answer. I pause on my way to my lab to see how this plays out.

"Morgan." We both look over at the Lieutenant's glass office as Angel Batista's voice rings across the office space. He approaches with a sheet of paper in hand and a bemused expression on his face. "Can you two come into my office for a minute, please?"

It's so formal; it feels even weirder than the odd looks of our workmates. I look uneasily around. I spot Deputy Marshall Max Clayton standing with Tom Matthews and Joey Quinn in a small knot. They glance conspicuously over their shoulders at us.

Shit.

 _Run_.

I'm immediately convinced we've been made and my instinct is to bolt for the elevator. Someone has stormed Deb's place and found Hannah. Someone has reviewed the evidence from the crime scene yesterday at Evelyn Vogel's and discovered that the version of events I had Deb provide is total rubbish. Someone found my DNA on Oliver Saxon and knows I was there with him when he died – not just Deb. Someone tracked down Dr Vogel and she's spilled my every secret to this department and now everybody knows what I am, what I've turned my sister into, what my father did to make us this way… Our whole family name and line, ruined beyond repair.

I'm always ready for this kind of thing and as scenarios fly about my brain, it takes every ounce of my self-control to keep myself from grabbing Deb and racing from the building with her in tow. It's only the mental recognition that we're in a building full of armed police and neither my sister nor I are armed or particularly fit for a police chase this morning that prevents me from trying.

Deb folds her arms. Just as I'm always ready to run, she's always ready for a conflict. "What for? What the fuck's going on, Batista?"

Angel stops halfway over to us and looks around at all of his staff. They all pointedly look down at their work, at their screens, at the floor. Anywhere but at us. They're privy to something, all of them, that we are not, and I gather from their behaviour that they've been told to act natural. Which is exactly what they're not doing.

"I need you to take a look at something," our boss answers, deliberately vague. He gestures with his head at his little office, the little office that used to be Deb's. I stay frozen where I am, feeling like a fox in the midst of a hunt. Angel and the others think if they stand very still and leave the door of the cage open I'll be silly enough to walk straight inside. I know that's what the office is, a trap, with no other door but the one I'll walk through, and once I'm inside I'll be done for. But despite knowing this I can't work out what else to do, where else to go. I've already assessed the options and found that I can't realistically run, even if it's what I do best. It's an admission of guilt and my back, and Deb's, would make easy targets for the room full of firearms.

I have to let them trap me. I have to walk in. I force my legs forward, try to look like normal, like I don't have a million excuses and fake alibis and cover stories and half-baked escape plans and potential distractions chasing each other through my mind. _Push Deb to floor. Throw weight at Miller, tackle to floor. Wrestle gun away. Roll behind desk…_ Enacting my drive to escape or even betraying that I'm thinking about it is a bolt to my cage door. I don't know which of my horror scenarios has come true, so I don't want to give away any more than they already know.

Deb follows at a distance, reluctant and determined to get some clarity before she gives in. I'm the runner in the family, even if in reality she's faster. I run; she stands her ground.

"Take a look at what?" she asks as I waver in place. "Why is everybody giving me the fucking greasy eye?"

She glares around at her co-workers and I see a few shifting uncomfortably or try to control smirks. The almost-smiles annoy her but mystify me. Are things less serious than I thought, or do Deb's friends just think she's that funny? I step into Angel's office ahead of him and Deb, and I force myself to keep breathing. I force myself to consider that if things were _the worst_ , and they knew everything, I'd have been arrested already. I wouldn't have made it across the floor from the elevators to the Lieutenant's office without a dozen guns being pulled on me.

Deb comes in and Angel holds the door open a moment longer. Max Clayton breaks away from Quinn and Matthews to be present for this conversation, and the door is finally closed on us. The blinds are left open so everyone can pretend not to watch whatever is going down in here.

I desperately want to glance sideways at Deb beside me, but I resist the urge. I'm afraid she'll look scared. I'm afraid she _won't_ look scared. I'm afraid she'll catch my gaze and I'll see the darkness I've been ignoring but which has most certainly been stirring quietly inside her for a while, and that I'll be even more tempted to act on the dark and unforgiveable thoughts that are occurring to me. _Snatch pen from desktop. Shove into Clayton's jugular. Elbow Batista in jaw. Shove against desk, knee into groin. Take gun. Hit across head, ensure incapacitated. Use as human shield slash hostage to ensure safe passage across floor to elevator and out of building_.

I can't look at Deb and imagine her helping me with all of that. I don't want to enjoy those thoughts and I don't want to have to see them through. Hopefully there's another way out of our mess.

I offer Angel a clueless expression that totally obscures the horrible thoughts I'm having.

"You going to tell us what this is about?" Deb demands. She points out the glass wall at her workmates and they all resume pretending not to be watching. "Every fucker out there is acting weird and I don't fucking like it."

"Deputy Marshal Clayton received a very strange email this morning, which I hope you two can shed some light on," Batista explains, tapping his sheet of paper against the fingers of his other hand. I can't see what's printed on its other side. "Everybody in this office was also CC'ed in."

Deb just stares at him, waiting for a point to be made. I ask, "Who sent the email?" because I suspect it's the normal question to ask, and one of only a few questions that will not further implicate me.

"Jacob Elway – and trust me," Angel insists when both my and Deb's expressions go irritable, "I'm treating that man's words with the appropriate quantity of salt."

"But his photography is a little harder to refute," Clayton says, and Angel apologetically offers me the page he has printed out. I accept it in my free hand and my stomach flips over.

And then I almost pass out with relief.

 _Clayton, Attached surveillance photography of Dt. Morgan's residence from this evening. Things are even stranger than either of us would have believed between the Morgans. Call me to discuss. Jacob Elway_

The offending photograph is below the text of the email. The very same, very sensitive, highly compromising photo contained in the yellow envelope in my other hand.

I try to look upset or horrified but I can't help feeling immensely pleased that my workmates discovered _this_ instead of everything else. I know I said in the car that I didn't want anyone to know, but I would much prefer my department think I have something weird and not entirely appropriate going on with my adoptive sibling than to have them realise I recreationally kill the killers they aren't able to put behind bars using just and conventional means. I channel my annoyance instead. Elway said we had twenty-four hours. He made it public without even giving us a chance to produce Hannah.

"No," Deb says immediately, taking a step back upon sighting the image and raising her hands, "no, not this shit."

And she turns and walks straight out of Angel's office, shoving the door and striding back into the main bullpen. She does what Deb never does, takes a leaf out of my book and _runs away_ ; but I'm glad she does because I'm not ready to pick up shattered bits of broken Deb off the floor so soon after last night's emotional disaster. Our boss tries once to catch her arm but he's too slow and she's gone. I don't bother. I have to redirect the line of fire. My life and lies are off the line but my dignity and Deb's are still at risk. I offer the yellow envelope I still hold to Clayton.

"We've already seen it," I tell the pair of them. "We found this on Deb's doorstep this morning. She's pretty upset."

"So I see," the deputy marshal agrees, watching through the window as Deb goes to the elevators and stabs the button angrily. "I don't suppose this is something either of you wanted in your workmates' inboxes."

"Not really. Mostly she's upset that Elway would try to do this."

"Elway still thinks you know where McKay is," Clayton comments, reading the message we received before checking the contents. "Any truth to that?"

"No." I indicate the message as Angel accepts it from the deputy marshal. "He's not the sharpest pencil in the tin, though, is he? Not much point in threatening us with a fake photograph and then making good on the threat before anyone can act on it." Talk about throwing away your own leverage.

Max Clayton raises an eyebrow. "Fake photograph?"

I give him my best clueless expression. "Yeah. These pictures. I don't understand why he'd try to scare Deb with it and then spread it around anyway." I glare scornfully at the paper copy from the printed email. "Who has time to photoshop offensive pictures and leave them at people's doors? And what the hell's he doing sneaking around outside Deb's place while she's asleep inside?"

"Wait," Angel Batista says now, raising the envelope to draw our attention to him. "Just wait. These pictures, Dexter: it's a photograph of you and Deb. _Together_."

"Yeah. Sick fuck Elway is."

"And you're trying to tell me it's a fake?"

I tilt my head as though confused, when in fact I'm very aware of what's going on and being very careful. "What else would I be telling you? Can we go arrest this piece of shit now for harassing my sister?"

Outside, in the bullpen, Deb's elevator has finally arrived and she's stepped inside. I feel her glare on the side of my face as her doors close. She's so pissed. It's not my fault, not by any reckoning, but she's angry and it's my job to fix it. To convince my station of what I convinced Hannah – that the photo isn't real, that it's all an elaborate ruse of Elway's to try to discredit and undermine the Morgans he currently hates so much, especially after yesterday's public confrontation.

It's uncomfortable territory for me, standing and fighting, but if she isn't prepared to do it I guess that only leaves me to say whatever needs to be said to put out the fires.

"We'll get to that. This is harassment, no doubt about it. But we're trying to ascertain-"

"This guy," I snap, losing patience with the expertise of someone who fakes all of his interactions with all of his people bar only a few, "verbally abuses Deb yesterday at a crime scene and then today sends her disgusting faked photographs-"

"Dexter, you don't need to pretend," Angel interrupts. "We've had the photo for a few hours. We've already run tests to check its authenticity."

Oh shit.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. I wave the printed photo once. "Are you telling me you think this is _real_?"

Angel's mouth twists with a tiny, controlled smile. "I'm telling you my eyes popped out of my head when I saw the email, and I immediately had it checked, so I _know_ it's real."

"But it isn't. I'm as shocked by these pictures as you are."

"Actually, it's more of a confirmation of an inkling I've had for a while," he disagrees thoughtfully. "Things have been… escalating… between you two for a while now. I mean," he amends, "you're always on this unique wavelength, the pair of you, but lately it's been different. I got wondering what you two could possibly be keeping secret between you; what all these fights and estrangements and sudden make-ups could be about."

I keep silent for a count of five, taking slow, controlled breaths. I need to stop and re-evaluate my lies before I dig myself in so deep that I end up burying myself alive. Better he think we're hiding an affair than a series of murder cover-ups. Right?

"I called Elway this morning; he admitted the mass email was a mistake," Clayton tells me offhandedly. "He was setting up a mass email, ready to send out tomorrow, when he decided to send a single copy to me, and in his haste forgot to take everybody else off the recipients list. Very clumsy."

I should be content. The kiss situation is neutralised – it's out, but apparently not the core business of this conversation – and even if it weren't, Deb has left the room and I, the logical one, am the only one left, and I very logically can accept that the kiss situation is the least problematic of the potential problems that could arise from this meeting with Clayton. But I am not content. My lie is not working. It so rarely happens that I throw a lie over myself and someone is able to see straight through it, but that's what's happening.

The instinct is to fight for it. Wouldn't Deb? If I'm adamant, if _I_ seem to believe it, I can sway others to believe, too.

"I did not kiss my sister," I insist. I throw the printed page down on the desk. "This is bullshit. I'll prove it." I snatch the glossy copy Deb received this morning from Clayton and stride out the way Deb did a minute earlier. Batista and Clayton follow closely.

"Dexter, give it a rest," Angel says wearily. I ignore him and go straight across the office floor to the lab, where Vince Masuka is sitting at a microscope. The eyes of a half dozen of my colleagues follow me. I ignore them too.

Masuka sees me coming and his eyes brighten.

"Ah, Dextrous," he greets me cheerfully, spinning his chair towards me and opening his arms in welcome. "You're here, finally. You have no idea how long I've waited to be able to say-"

" _Don't_ even go there," I bite out, extending my hand with the photo as I approach. "I need this verified as a fake."

"Oh, is that the original?" Vince is keen to get his hands on it. "Can I keep this? I promise to use it respectfully. And frequently."

"Just run it," I snap. I'm so genuinely annoyed by the lack of belief in my lies right now. I imagine this is how people feel when I invent lies to undermine and thwart their truths. Clayton and Batista catch up and stop beside me as Vince leans back on his stool.

"For what? I've run every test I know on the digital copy. I have the results here." He reaches back for a page of test results and pretends to read them to me. "It's just what I always suspected. Official findings: Two Morgan tongues fit easily inside one Morgan mouth." He expertly scoots his little stool away from me when I try to snatch the page from him in irritation. People are _listening_. "God, please tell me your tongue fits just as easily in other places when you two-"

"Vince-"

"Vince," Angel concurs with me. He's cringing. "That's enough. Just tell Dexter what you told me. The _professional_ bit."

My co-scientist folds his arms. "Your photograph is authentic as fuck, and I want enough copies to wallpaper my bathroom. I told you," he adds when we all look away, uncomfortable with his general foulness, "I ran tests already. Microscoped the _shit_ out of it. No blur from overlaps, no inconsistent outlines, no evidence at all that anything was photoshopped. Believe me, _I wanted to be sure_. I wouldn't confirm its validity without being one hundred percent certain. And anyway," he says now, suddenly confused, "why am I telling you any of this? You of all people would know that it's real."

None of this is going the way I wanted. I'm so glad Deb already left. I'm not sure she could handle this right now. I try to tell myself this is actually positive. The mass exposure of the photograph has almost totally diverted attention away from my part in crimes and while Clayton still clearly has some pertinent questions, they apparently aren't of high enough importance to interrupt the sensationalism of the photograph leak. He's just standing there listening, waiting for me to stop trying to prove my case so he can move on to his.

I might actually be off the hook. But that's not enough. Deb will want it all wiped clean.

"It's _not_ real," I insist. "Deb is _my sister_."

"She's not your real sister. Not by blood," Masuka offers kindly, like this makes it any better. I want to slap him off his stupid little stool.

"Fuck you, Vince. As good as," I snap, incensed. Angel raises his hands and steps closer when I realise that I have already taken my own threatening step towards Masuka.

"Dex, Dex," Angel soothes, laying a hand on my arm. "No one's denying that. I think you're missing what we're trying to achieve here. No one's trying to attack or upset you," he adds, glancing meaningfully at Vince. "We know Deb's your sister, blood or not." I try to feel better for Angel's sake. He's trying. "We're just saying, if it were also something _more_ , that…" He struggles to articulate it the way he wants it to come across without further distressing me. "That would be…"

"Fucking hot as all fuck," Vince finishes cheerfully, and I swiftly kick out at his stupid little stool. It slides out from under him and flips him back; he only just manages to catch the tabletop in time to avoid falling over. The stool's wheels clatter back into place on the floor. Clayton and Batista both take an anxious half-step forward to help if need be, but there's no need. Vince is indignant. "Sensitive, much?"

"It would be perfectly okay," Angel says now, carefully and gently, treading lightly. He gestures around the office and I reluctantly look about. "It's nobody else's fucking business, right?"

I feel panicky. I want to agree – it _is_ nobody else's fucking business – and I want to acknowledge Batista's friendly implicit offer of acceptance of whatever I have going on with Deb. I want to take the easy road and agree. I want to keep the heat off my real problems as long as possible, and taking this small rap on the knuckles of my pride seems cheap compared with some other possible consequences fate has lined up for me. But as much as I want to agree with Batista, I want to run ten times more intensely. I want to slither out of this headlock and maintain the kiss never happened, that they'll never catch me in the truth. I want to slip between their fingers and get away with my lies. But most of all I want to physically _run away_ from this whole woeful situation, because after my boss and the deputy marshal have finished questioning me about the photograph, I'm sure Hannah or Vogel or something else more concerning is sure to come up, and _then_ I could most definitely find myself proper fucked.

I find myself, for the moment, deeply jealous of my sister for being the one who ran away. I wish I'd just done it when I'd considered it in the bullpen. No one shot her. In retrospect I wish I'd just chanced the same course of action.

It would have saved me this humiliation, at least for a while.

"I'm not worried about what you and your sister might have going on at night," Clayton speaks up when I say nothing, openly dismissive. "I'm looking for Hannah McKay. Elway clearly thinks you're integral to that search and all this-" he reaches for the yellow envelope and waves it "-invading your privacy, stalking you… It's risky behaviour, desperate, and I have to consider that he could be onto something if he's so eager to catch you out. So." He pauses and lets this sink in for me. "What is he trying to scare you into admitting? What am I going to _find_ , Mr Morgan, if I start digging into your life?"

 _Run. Run away_.

"Plenty, I'm sure," I say finally, coolly. My brain fires electrical signals in all directions, outsourcing to all possible cells for creative solutions. "Nothing about Hannah. I haven't seen her in months."

Clayton presses his lips together, and I realise I was right. He was waiting out the photo talk to get to this – his true motive for being here today. He's here to have another go at me, from this new angle, while I'm already down and defensive and angry. More likely to slip up. Maybe more willing to acknowledge a continued relationship with Hannah if it discredits the validity of the photographs.

Sorry, Mr Clayton. You must have thought you were hunting a dumber fox than this one. You may have me almost cornered but I'm not going to come willingly.

"I wonder where Elway gets these crazy ideas from, then?" he comments. "He says he was put onto McKay by _your sister_ when she was an employee of his. Apparently she was tracking McKay through you."

 _Run_.

"She and I already explained that. It was a misunderstanding."

"Right." Clayton clicks his fingers, imitating getting a sudden stroke of memory. But he forgets nothing. He's an actor as much as I. "You were only meeting up with Arlene. Which is in itself odd, isn't it? That you'd need to drive so far out of your way to meet up with your girlfriend?"

 _Run, run, get the hell out_. I feel the noose tightening, the dogs closing in…

"Maybe things with Arlene aren't that serious," I say now. "Maybe I didn't really want anyone to know about that."

"Or maybe you aren't seeing Ms Schram at all," Clayton suggests. He glances between Angel and Vince. "None of your friends had any idea. Makes it hard to corroborate your claim."

They have the grace to look mildly apologetic.

"As I said, I wasn't about to announce it online, you know? Arlene's…" Kind of scrappy.

"She's definitely no Deb," Vince agrees wholeheartedly, and this time it's Angel who tells him to shut it. I'm glad. Things are getting serious. I hadn't thought of how the distance to where I met Hannah at the Keys would appear once I ran with the claim that I'd been meeting Arlene, who lives in the opposite direction and has a big lovely house that would have served adequately as a fuck pad.

"She's not the quickest," Clayton agrees, "which is why I wouldn't believe she was helping McKay all on her own, but with the assistance of someone more competent, more clued in… someone who still has feelings for McKay…"

"I don't still have feelings for Hannah," I insist, and it's one hundred per cent true. How quickly the heart can change its mind.

No. The heart doesn't change its mind. The mind does. My mind has changed its mind, and acknowledged that Hannah is a universally bad idea. The heart knows what it's always known.

"No?"

"No."

"Any evidence of that?"

 _Run!_ It's a trap, it's all a trap! _Punch Clayton in throat, throw to floor, pull gun from holster, thrust elbow backwards into Masuka, jump forward and grab Batista…_

The elevator door pings softly and I'm a split second away from enacting any one of my dark and life-altering courses of action when Deb steps hurriedly into view and looks urgently about for me. I know it's me she's looking for, though she says nothing, I just _know_ , and it gives me reason to pause.

She came back. She ran away but she came back.

She turns her head and spots me. Her eyes, so like mine even if we share no blood, fill with something I don't recognise, and she strides over. Clayton and Batista glance back over their shoulders, following my gaze as she approaches. She ignores them, brushing past the deputy marshal without even a look of acknowledgement.

I think I expect her to slow down and address me, to stop and say or do something, but she doesn't stop and she doesn't falter. Thoughts of Hannah, Arlene, the investigation, my life of cover-ups and poor choices, all of it goes out of my head as I try to work out what has brought her back. Did something happen? Is she afraid, coming to me for safety or comfort? I begin to say, "Deb? Are you…?" but she doesn't respond. She walks until the toes of her boots knock mine and her body is pressed against mine, and she leans her head aside to meet my mouth in a kiss that I simultaneously never anticipated yet knew fully to expect. Because my mouth is open automatically to meet hers.

It's not a short kiss. It's electrical. Her arms loop around my neck and her back arches to bring more of herself against me, and my hands find themselves delicately on her back, careful of the injuries I am so tired of redressing. Her exhalations come sharp and short from her nose and are warm on my cheek. Her lips work mine and her tongue traces mine enticingly. There's a confidence that wasn't immediately present last night, and a lack of last night's desperation and urgency. Deb wants to kiss me – and Jesus, I want to kiss her – but her life doesn't depend on it. There's want without need.

I've got to admit I like that better. Anything where her life's on the line, regardless of how soul-meltingly hot, is too scary to maintain for long.

She breaks away breathlessly and my hands are on her waist. I'm looking straight into her eyes and I start to read some of the emotion swelling there. Determination seems to be in the lead.

"Fuck running away," Deb whispers, voice husky with breathlessness, looking at me with those bright eyes, so full of _Deb_. She's back. She tried my way and didn't like it, and came back to face the music.

I feel so proud of her, even if she just undermined everything I just spent the last few minutes trying to claim. Even if she just proved me a total bullshitter and probably gave Clayton reason to discount everything I've ever told him.

I become aware that we're standing toe-to-toe in each other's arms in front of all of our workmates. I slowly shrug her arms off my shoulders and drop my hands, clearing my throat awkwardly as I look around.

No one is speaking, in the whole damn office. A phone goes unanswered, ringing incessantly, but no one seems concerned. Furthest away, Thomas Matthews and Joey Quinn are staring with blank, wide-eyed expressions, too shocked to have any immediate feelings about what they just witnessed, while everyone between them and me wears a face of some variation of amusement.

"I don't still have any feelings for Hannah, and there's nothing going on with Arlene," I say finally to Clayton, looking back at him.

He nods with bemusement. "I'll adjust my notes," he says with a small smile that I interpret as being a major danger sign, and he walks away.

Angel Batista lightly claps my shoulder and spares me a supportive glance as he follows. I know I'll be ribbed on later for this; I know this isn't the last I'll hear of this in a professional sense, either, because Elway's harassment charge will bring this all up again. But for now, for this minute, it's dropped. I recognise Angel's receding footsteps as a metaphor for the short reprieve I've been granted, and I chance a quick look at Deb. Her silence is off-putting, and though she smiles, I see from the still expression in her eyes that she appreciates fully – without knowing exactly how deep in shit I was before she walked in – how lucky we are to be seeing Clayton and Batista's backs right now.

That was _way_ too close.

Vince's mouth has been hanging open but now he closes it with a snap.

"Dexter Morgan," he says seriously, standing up to look me in the eye and offering me a hand, "you are my fucking hero."

"Fuck off, Masuka," Deb answers, without malice. She turns to me. "Can I talk to you?"

 _Alone_ is implicit. I consider my lab, where I can shut everybody else out and have a minute of private, if highly speculated-upon, conversation, but I realise how that limits our options. I gesture back where she came, and we start toward the lifts.

"Dexter, wait," Vince insists. "Please: you can't go home and fuck her until after I've said the line-"

I'm exasperated into stopping on my way across the floor after her and I turn on my colleague, angrily shushing him. " _Shhh_! Fuck, Vince!" I look around. No one heard him, but most people have noticed my sister and I looking to be leaving. "I'm not-" I can't finish, and cut myself off, embarrassed.

Deb is equally annoyed. "We're not going _home_ , we just got here."

Vince stops and stares at us, eyes wide like Christmas was accidentally doubled-up on his calendar. "You're going to fuck _in the lift?_ "

Now people can hear. I want to blow up the building and silence everybody in it.

I shake my head, unable to think of anything non-explosive to say, and prod Deb in the back to get her walking again. I follow her to the hall and she pushes the call button for the next elevator. I don't want to be here, around these people, a second longer than I have to. I feel curious gazes burning into my back.

"You expect me to believe after seeing that picture that you're _not_ fucking?" Vince asks when we don't respond. He waits patiently beside us for the elevator.

"That is exactly what I expect you to believe," I answer coldly. He scoffs. "Believe whatever you want; it doesn't change the facts."

"Aww, don't say it like that." His expression falls a little. "I don't want to think it was some kind of once-off drunken experiment thing."

The numbers above the lift doors show it is only one floor away. Deb shrugs one shoulder, relenting slightly for her favourite perverted forensic technician. "Even if we only kissed, at least you know now it wasn't just a _once_ -off."

Vince Masuka brightens suddenly. "That's true. Thankyou – you gave me plenty of material for the spank bank by coming back here." Deb cringes; I think my face is set like that already so I don't feel any change to my expression as Masuka turns to me. "Before you go and _not fuck_ her, you have to let me say the line."

 _Ping._ The elevator arrives and the doors start to open. I sigh, irritated. "What line?"

He beams. He's been waiting for so long. He doesn't hold back with volume or theatrical pitch.

" _You made out with your sister, dude_!"

I roll my eyes and slip between the people trying to exit the lift, ignoring their surprised looks (because they all heard that, too), ignoring chuckles from the bullpen, ignoring Vince's offered fist. I move to the back and turn, glaring back out at my department's floor. Deb puts her hands on her hips and glares at Masuka.

"Excuse the fuck out of me," she snaps, "but I do believe _I_ made out with _him_. So where's my fucking credit for that?"

The people leaving the lift glance back at her or falter in their step or choke on their conversation. Vince Masuka blinks, dumbfounded; probably mirroring my own expression, though I'm standing alone in the lift and no one's looking at me. He recovers before I do.

" _You made out with your brother, dude_!" he exclaims brightly, stepping closer and offering his fist again. Deb is a good sport; she bows her head gracefully and touches her knuckles to his amiably. They mimic an explosion and withdraw their hands backwards like the teenagers they both are at heart. Finally contented, Vince smiles at her. "Uh, I don't suppose you'll be needing the photo, then? It's back there on my desk," he adds helpfully, pointing over his shoulder.

"Keep it," Deb says, and his eyes widen in surprise. "I don't want to see it again."

"You kind and generous soul," Masuka almost whispers.

"Angel will want it back when he brings his harassment case against Elway in front of a judge," I call out of the lift, still waiting for Deb. Masuka shoots me a quick irritable look.

"Spoilsport," he mutters. He looks up at Deb with refreshed awe and respect. "You made a man very happy today, I hope you realise."

"Deb, hurry up," I prompt irritably. I stab the 'doors close' button.

"Yeah, I see that," Deb answers our friend with a playful glance downward as she comes to me. Masuka anxiously checks the front of his pants but I don't see the look of relief or embarrassment that would confirm or deny Deb's insinuation because Deb steps into the lift and the doors close behind her. I'm kind of glad of her timing.

We're alone. She leans back against the door and hits the button for the ground floor.

I lean forward to rest my hands on my knees.

We just kissed in front of our whole floor. Everybody knows. Batista's cool with it. Everyone else seems cool with it, too. But we're humiliated, beyond embarrassed, and I don't think I can ever face those people back there again. My lies fell through, and nobody is ever going to believe a word I say again, and my credibility is shredded, and I'm annoyed with the world, but… it's not all quite as bad as it could have been. Elway's going to be brought up on charges of harassment against Debra. Batista thinks my attempts at covering my ass were only to hide the affair with Deb. Clayton no longer has reason to think I'm in love with Hannah and he's been redirected for the time being. No one knows about the blood on my hands, or the blood on Deb's. My _real_ secrets get to stay secret for a little while longer.

Until next time someone asks. And next time, nothing I say will mean much. I've proven that. Deb, meanwhile, has proven she's not a reliable or valid spokesperson for my character. When my secrets _do_ come out, or if hers do, our insistence of the other's innocence is not going to count.

We're interdependent and inappropriately reliant and now everybody knows it. Anything I'm accused of, henceforth, she will be assumed to be complicit with.

I should be annoyed with Deb. Angry with her for blowing everything up in our faces. She didn't need to come back and kiss me; she definitely didn't need to accept Masuka's praise and accolades. But she did, and it can't be taken back, and I can't be any angrier with her for doing what she always does and standing her ground than I can be with the sun for rising or the trees for growing. It wasn't even as bad as my worst imaginings. No one shouted or jeered and our dad didn't leap out of the photographs in the hall to die of shame. I stood my ground with her rather than run from my problems and… we're okay. We're okay. She's okay. I'm okay.

There's something to be said for bowing out while you're ahead, right?

We came in here to talk privately, but we're silent for so long. There's nothing really to be said. She looks at me and I look at her and I know we both know exactly what the other is thinking.

I'm almost tempted to suggest that this twist of fate is almost in our favour, that we've forced our own hand and the repercussions are some of the least severe we could have expected, but I'd never want to be brazen enough to say that out loud for fear it would come back to bite me.

Imagine how this might have gone down if I'd done differently? In some parallel universe, is there a Dexter whose department _isn't_ aware that he has at least twice hooked up with his sister, and is he in any better or worse circumstances than I am?

Deb tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I scratch a vague itch behind my calf. There's nothing to say, and what is available for discussion is mostly awkward and embarrassing. _What does this mean for us? How will this sound to a judge when we bring up Jacob Elway's charges? How will we handle Joey Quinn's reaction when he recovers from the shock? Should we tell anyone else? What exactly do we tell, considering we only agreed half an hour ago that we don't have any name or label for what is between us and that we definitely don't want to be a romantic 'thing'? Do we act any differently around Harrison and the Bennetts?_ The facts remain as they always have – Deb is Harry's daughter and my sister; I love her like I love the sun, more even; I'm a terrible person with a secret track record of terrible deeds and the last thing in the world I deserve is the love, trust and care of someone like Debra, but by some mistake in the writing of the universe's plan she stays with me – but the very public kiss brings up questions we had hoped to avoid having to ask ourselves.

It's all uncomfortable and neither of us wants to open dialogue. We don't want to face our new reality. We're running, from ourselves, even as we stand so still. I go first.

Fuck running away.

"So."

She had lifted her foot to dust something off the toe of her boot and she was looking at that, but now she lifts her familiar gaze to mine.

"So," she replies dryly.

And that's all that needs to be said on that topic. I know we agree.

 _Ping_. The elevator opens to the ground floor. We show up on the surveillance cameras walking out side by side, silent with set expressions, and later Jamie Batista gives a confused statement about us turning up for Harrison after less than an hour, and though we told each other to fuck running away, our minds are made up.

We run.


End file.
